swilkinson

For those that don't know I have stepped down from hosting Caregiver Chat. I was a chat host for eleven years but four years out from Ray's passing I thought it time to step down. I do miss it and think fondly of all the many people who over the years I have chatted to. A few of them are on my Facebook page so I do see what they are doing, but on Facebook we only put the highs,not the lows, so I hope that are all well and coping with life. I know as a caregiver that life is not easy as I often struggled with Ray's care needs but for a stroke survivor it is forever a part of your lives and I do respect that. Caregivers, please support Host Sally as she needs to be busy, sitting waiting for someone to come into chat is boring so if you can drop by for a few minutes on Tuesday nights I am sure she would appreciate that. I used to be a telephone counselor on the "Lifeline" phones, Lifeline is a suicide line but dramatic as that sounds our main callers were the lonely. They had a problem filling in time and when I was on Thursday nights I would have regular callers. I know how bad loneliness can be, it can lead to depression and other illnesses. You need never be lonely, reaching out to someone solves that problem and on this site there are many ways of doing that, blogging, posting and chatting being the main ones. So if you are lonely reach out to people who understand. It seems Spring is full on this year. We are having cool nights and warm days, the weeds are outstripping the plants in the garden so gardening has become somewhat of a chore. Weeding has never been my favorite occupation. But I love the Spring blooms, never underestimate the beauty of a red geranium against a green lawn and a bright blue sky. Some years there is no Spring and we go straight to summer so I am appreciating the continuing of the cooler nights, when summer does come we will want them back. I have been to some of the beach cafes but it is too cold for me in the water to swim until December so looking forward to having some summer soon. End of year functions have started appearing on my calendar and friends who say "see you soon" may be disappointed that I can't fit everything in. It is a good problem to have when you are a widow. I have found loneliness a problem particularly over the first two years when my family were wide spread and I didn't have a lot of companionship. Now some of my old acquaintances are back in touch and that is good and I have filled my life with busyness so I have a variety of things to do in my life. it is not the ideal existence but it is not too bad either. Being a widow can be an isolating situation but if you move forward a little at a time new things do come into your life and make it better. I have a man friend I go out with once or twice a week, day time only as he has leukemia and tires mid afternoon. Most days he drops me home at 4pm as he has medication to take before dinner, that's a problem for us old folk...lol. It is a friendship I am learning to appreciate. It is good to have a day out and rain, hail or shine we find somewhere to have lunch and somewhere interesting to go. He is a collector ( read hoarder) and loves the second hand shops and charity shops and I don't mind browsing around and we both enjoy a walk so plenty to do. I met him at a nearby church market and now he comes to our market at church too so I get to sit and talk to him for a while there. He is very different to Ray but in a way similar to my Dad so it is an easy relationship. And so life goes on with it's ups and downs. I am keeping in good health at this point in time so I am grateful for that. Church is a bit full on as I seem to be second in charge of a few of the groups, I don't mind being a backup just don't want it all to fall on my shoulders. I do lead one of the Sunday services so I have a permanent commitment to that. I guess things change slowly and that service will be reviewed after Christmas so I may have more free time then. On the whole life is doable .

Fred, here is what I wrote: Fred (fking) has been a stroke survivor for 12 years now. Fred has had some different roles on this site, all meant to encourage other survivors on their stroke journey. I commend Fred for what he offers others in support and encouragement in commenting on the blogs in our Blog Community including mine. Fred, you are a valued member here. Fred replied: Thank you Sue on the Blog Report, I just can't say how much longer I will be a member on here..... You can imagine me with one side paralyzed, 75 years old, been suffering for nearly 13 years, so I'm getting a bit tired in not having much strength left in my worn out body.... I tell you and others as well when you got to drag one side of your body around it gets pretty hard each day to do because it takes so much energy you don't have to start with...... Some times I'm just dragging my left foot not picking it up at all....... No strength left.... :roflmao: I suppose when I get back to church it will be for my own funeral..... It's just me and one sister still alive and she is 81, six years older than me.... Her twin died about six years ago so when her and I go that is the end of 18 kids born to our parents as I am number 18 and she was number 17 born 6 years ahead of me.... Therefore I may be retiring from Stroke Net very soon and try to concentrate on me making it to a few more years older if it's God's will......That none of us here know!!!!!!!!

Fred, we age and we ache and we cannot do all the things we used to do BUT we still have some life left in us and need to make the most of it. I can't bend and stretch as I once did and sometimes wish I was younger but those years also made us wiser too. So use your remaining time wisely. Find something to make you laugh every day and pass your smile on to others who seem to be having a bad day. All of us seniors need someone to make us smile from time to time. As you say life is good.

Jay, it always amazes me when good things come my way. Enjoy the gifts you have received, what comes around goes around and that also applies to the kindness you have shown to so many others. Be blessed and be a blessing as you so often remind us.

How good that you were there for your Aunt and her family, glad you made it up the hill with some help. I love the thought of the kindness shown by the church people when your Aunt needed it the most. God bless them all.

Sometimes life is depressing, we all have that. I have to think back and say: "what if Ray did not have the first stroke in 1990?" and "what if Ray did not have the two major strokes in 1999?" and there is no answer. Life is what it is. (((hugs)))

Ruth, there is a danger that we painted ourselves out of the picture somehow, made ourselves invisible. I feel like that about my caregiver days. Maybe sometimes you should hand the camera to one of the family so you are in the picture too. William is important but so are you. And this is your life as well. I guess it is a caregiver's choice to be the invisible partner sometimes though. I well remember that I wasn't much concerned, especially on the days when I had little time to worry about hair and makeup before I went out. But now when I look back on that time I do think: "Where are the pictures of me?"

Jay, we all feel isolated and a little lonely from time to time. Like me you thrive where there are people around but we have to have that time alone too to regenerate and re-energize.

Fred, why not take the job if you think you are up to it? It might just be the thing to get you re-engaged in life I know sitting alone at home can never get you what you want, there has to be a stimulus, so try and see if this is a way of feeling better. You will be back on the praying edge of life too and that could be a good thing.

I am glad you got to go for that last visit. It means so much to the ones who are caring for the person when someone else comes by with their memories of happier times. I know that was how it was for me during Ray's last year in the nursing home. No-one can prevent your loved one from dying but they can accompany you on the journey and lift your spirits.

I was looking back on the life I have lead in the past twelve months or so and discovered I have no pictures to look back on and yet I have been a lot of places and done a lot of things. During the last few years with the exception of the two trips overseas I have taken very few photos. I guess it is because I am alone and so I forget to take the camera with me, after all who is going to want to share the photos afterwards? The ones I have on my computer are mostly those of the six grandchildren, sent to me on Facebook or by email that I have downloaded and sometimes passed on to Shirley, my daughter, who is not on Facebook or shared them with my friends who are on my own Facebook page because I am a proud Grandma and those pictures of my grandchildren are precious and I do want my friends to see how much they have grown. Because I have not taken photos regularly I have failed to record some important events, events I have shared with others and some I am only just realizing were precious only to me. Why have I not recorded them as I did when I was the mother of a family or part of a couple? I don't really know except that as a widow I don't feel that what I do is important to any one but me but of course it is, this is my new life, my whole life and I am letting it slip past unrecorded. So I have made a new resolution, I need to record my life in pictures as well as words.The words of course are in my blogs here and on Widowed Village but that does not really record what is happening day by day so maybe I need to start a journal again too. My journaling in the past has never been a success so that is why I blog, but the blog is often more an expression of philosophy rather than a record of events. Sometimes I wonder what that is about, why it is a reflection rather than a record of events. But I guess it is because it is important not to make it too personal, after all a lot of people read it over a period of time and so I don't write the nitty gritty but paint a wider picture of how my life FEELS. Even then I am sure it holds little interest for a lot of people. I am not a caregiver now, I am a widow and have a different kind of life to what I had in those caregiving years. Perhaps on the whole a lonelier one but certainly having little in common with the life I lead when I looked after Ray. One of the disappointments in my life is that as a widow I have no-one to share the details of my life with. Of course I can tell a friend an interesting story about something that has happened to me but only immediate family ask how you have been and what you have been doing and really want to listen to your answer. It is easier to retain memories if you discuss or rehash them with others, so in the main life slips by and I hardly remember what I did day to day. Without memory sharing I find I have not a lot of recorded memories of my own. I might speak to others on the phone or even discuss some things face to face but it is all generalized rather than defined details. I really miss Ray as a listener, involved in the same life, interested in the same people. Very few people really want to see your grandchildren's photos once they stop being cute babies. I note this in several organizations where doting grandmothers pass their phones around and ask : "Have you ever seen anything as cute?" and politeness stops us from saying that the new baby is not as cute as the offspring of our offspring. After all beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And I know other people to whom I relate tales of my grandchildren's doings will not duplicate my pride in them. I have some friends who are interested for a few minutes but I then see them losing interest or looking eager to top my story with one of their own. That's human nature. Today I had a free day, no Saturday excursion with my man friend today as he had some other plans. I went to a local market held in the grounds of a local pub, nothing much of interest to me there but I ran into some of the women from my Craft group who are not the church goers but the women from the community. These women have often included me quite willingly in their outside activities and today was no exception as they invited me to join them for lunch in the hotel's picnic area. The next three hours were good for me, bright company, good conversation, some laughs. I am blessed with my friends and acquaintances, in the fact that so many wonderful people have entered my life and given me permission to enter theirs, that is what makes my life feel worthwhile. Of course it is not one of the things included in the pictures of my life although it should perhaps be. So I think I will try to capture a moment here and there of things that are important to me, sunrises and sunsets, the garden in bloom, the people who I work with and love doing so as well as the changing geography of my area. I must remember to take some photos of my old friends too. Otherwise my kids will have no-one who appears in my photo albums to say: "Who is that???" or "I don't know who this is but she/he and Mum seem to be having fun." because I need them to know that I was with people who cared about me enough to be seen with me at various functions. After all the albums contain plenty of photos of them growing up so maybe they should also contain photos of me growing old.

Tracy, I am glad you agree with me on the nature watching scene. I have just been out in the garden and with Spring here some of the trees have new bright green leaves, so pretty with the sunlight filtering through them. The retuning birds too are good to watch. I think the slower life is the better life now. I am through racing through the scenery and missing most of what is good about the world. A slower pace for me now.

Sometimes it is hard to be steady in the situations you found yourself in today and it was you who had the presence to do it.. I am sure all that you did in a quiet way had an impact for the better on what others felt. Good for you.

I think three years is probably a good place to start the new method of counting Jay.

Tracy, your family are going through a hard patch for sure. Hope it all works out and you can pay the rent on time. Your husband's BP sounds a bit of a worry. See if you can get him to do something relaxing, for Ray it was a snooze in the afternoon, for me a quiet read in a sunny corner or somewhere in the garden. We all need to have time off and time out but it is hard to find the time we need to do that sometimes.

Sorry the damage has happened to your ulnar nerve. Where the prisms in your glasses in the prescription from the optomotrist? If so they should make you a new pair with the prisms in them.

Sounds like discrimination to me. See if you can get someone to check out the Liquor Licencing laws, surely they don't apply to thickened juices. Do you have a lawyer close by who would check it out for you pro bono (free). Some lawyers just love to get their teeth into discrimination cases. Or find an alternative for Friday nights and maybe make new friends.

One of the Aussie stroke survivors on here and I are trying to get together for a lunch. We keep proposing dates and then one or the other of us has to cancel. I know this is a busy life so I guess that is the reason. It is not a long trip as she lives in Sydney an hour and a half or so from here, maybe two and a half hours if I factor in public transport.. I find it difficult to make a date and a time as that depends what else is happening in my life. I am picking up friends from the past again. They are retiring and moving back to the Central Coast. It is good in a way but these days we are just acquaintances having lived for 40 or more years without seeing each other. It surely must have been much easier a few generations ago when we didn't move around as much, to keep in touch with friends and family. It is Spring here, hot today, cool change tomorrow. I have been doing some Spring cleaning, mainly changing curtains etc. It had to be done sooner or later. I keep on thinking I will declutter but the most I seem to do is a shopping bag at a time. Each of the precious items I have saved holds a memory. I changed the bedroom curtains today and even that has an impact as it changes the way I look at my room. I still look at it through the eyes of Ray's wife. I still struggle to be "me", sometimes I can do it, be just me without any title but that only lasts a short while. Forty four years is a long time married and only four since so I know in the end I will be able to do it. For now it is as though life is a tree losing it's leaves and I resent each one that drops to the ground. I had my daughter and her family here for a couple of nights last week so all of that bed linen needs to be washed too. I do the jobs as I get around to them, fitting them in between other parts of my busy life. Today, with a warm wind blowing was an ideal day to start the clean up. I always smile when friends say : "You could do it all in a day if you wanted to." Yes, when there are two of you working side by side it is a lot quicker to tidy a garden or clean out a room but when I am by myself it is so tempting to sit and look at the book you are moving or the photo album you are about to pack away. I am hoping to get stuck into the garden soon, haven't done any repotting for ages and can't now until the bromiliads slow down again as they are starting to bloom. I have always had a lot of plants in pots. That started when we lived away for ten years while Ray was with Fisheries. As we knew we would only be in any one station for three years it seemed more sensible to put the plants I valued into pots rather than into the garden so they could move on with us. I am gradually accumulating new geranium cuttings which is just as well as some of the mature plants are around twenty years old. I have a deep red ivy geranium that was originally a dance prize in 1983 that I have taken many cuttings from over those intervening years. One of the things that fills my life with joy is the weekly phone calls from my grand daughter Alice. Sometimes we talk on Skype. I am glad I live in the Facebook/Skype age as I can talk to her when her father has enough credit to allow her to do so. It is nice to have her chirrupping away about Playgroup and Toy Library and swimming lessons and all the other things that fill her time with her Dad. It is strange that as the youngest she is the only one I speak to regularly. With the others I speak to their parents and only very occasionally to them personally. Her Dad, Trevor, is determined she will have that contact on a regular basis as they live so far away from the rest of the family. I am determined to have happy days. It is not really an actual goal but it is a different way of looking at life. When I go to bed each night I review the day..what has happened, who I've see or talked to, what I have done. From all of that I try to think of things that have given me satisfaction, helped someone, made me feel happy. Some days do not have a lot to recommend them, rainy days, days when plans are changed, days when I get bogged down in menial tasks and don't seem to achieve a lot but there are other days when there is something to make me smile. I love Sunday hugs from some of the widows,a meal out, a day in the garden where I can look back and see a new row of spinach seedlings or a few repotted plants that are about to flower. I think I have always liked the simple things. Just today changing the curtains, tidying drawers, finding some old photos to look at, that is enough to make me happy. A friend recently asked me when I am going to start taking those trips I have promised myself and you know I doubt I will now. I never did see the value of travel for travels sake and without a partner to travel with I would be alone. I seem to have reverted to the simpler life I lived as a child, short trips always with a person to visit at the end. Maybe that is what your retirement years should be about. There is plenty to do as a volunteer but I like to have days at home now too. I fought the loneliness for so long and now I am more comfortable with it. I don't want people around me all the time as people often mean work as a volunteer. But I do like company so my new man supplies some of that. And so do old friends, the groups involved in church and Lions and Apex40 and the odd groups of ladies who I go to lunch with. Time to turn some of that washing into ironing. I am moving through the house looking at the curtains, bed spreads etc. It is wash one lot, then the next. Knowing me that will last a day this week then half a day next week etc. I need to give up all the other activities and stick to one job. But that is not when usually happens in my life. As John Lennon said; "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans."

Jay we all need support and encouragement. I am glad this lady was able to show you how much she thought of what you wrote. That is good for both of you.

My dear friend, I do hope this new treatment does something to resolve your issues without changing your outlook and attitude which I have always found so refreshing. I know sometimes the medical profession turns to drastic solutions so just hope this is the right one for you. (((hugs))) from Sue Down under.

Asha, always good to know people love the Blog Community like I do. For me reading the blogs is like talking to old friends when you haven't heard from them for a while, or chatting to your next door neighbour.

Some little creatures are very ingenious at living life within our human communities. It is a good story Tracy and i guess proves we humans are good for a laugh as far as squirrels are concerned too.

You are right, a positive attitude is an amazing thing.

It's good when we have a positive response from someone. Helping people is great but even better when we get a positive response. Keep up the good work.

Yes, none of us are getting younger Fred, so we do what we can when we can. Just keep on doing what you are doing, exercising the dogs, helping here, supporting your family with your love and prayers. That is enough.